


i sink ever deeper now (i don't want to die alone)

by eaglenotbeagle



Category: Outer Banks (TV), Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Basically Canon-Compliant for both universes, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Friendship, Lots of Pogue Love, Multi, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29719107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eaglenotbeagle/pseuds/eaglenotbeagle
Summary: The Pogues were planning to have a normal summer. A good time, maybe a little less drama. But as usual, Tyche is not on their side, and they find themselves thrown into the world of Greek gods and terrifying monsters.This is a Percy Jackson AU!You don't need to be familiar with PJ to read, but if you haven't watched Outer Banks it will read like an OC fic in the PJO universe - new prophecies and quests and all that jazz, with the Seven et al. as background characters.
Relationships: JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), Sarah Cameron/John B. Routledge
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently re-watched Outer Banks and fell in love with the show all over again, and I thought, why the hell not, I'm gonna write a PJO/Outer Banks fic. I hope it fulfills the same yearning for adventure and hot people in the summer for you as writing it does for me.

JJ had time to yell, “What the fuck is that?” before he had to hit the deck. The thing’s huge head swept over the HMS Pogue, dripping something vile and green from its jagged teeth. He could hear Kie screaming and one of the guys yelling, but as far as he could tell everyone was still on board.

The boat rocked as something slammed the bow and he heard the splash of a body hitting the water. Fuck. He rolled over to look around. The creature was suspended above him, head at least twenty feet out of the water, swinging down toward the deck. It was coming fast. He shouted and rolled away, heard the crack of the Pogue under the force of the blow. “Pope,” John B was yelling, leaned over the boat to the water, “fuck, Pope, grab my arm!” The thing, undulating in the water like some bloodthirsty Loch Ness monster, wound up for another strike, and JJ scrambled to the stern.

“Holy shit holy shit holy shit,” he rummaged through his canvas bag and fumbled out the gun, “Kie? Start the fucking motor. Fuck.”

The creature jabbed at the boat again, moving like a snake, but JJ had a feeling barking wouldn’t deter it. He pulled the trigger with a shaky finger, praying that his hand was steady enough to hit the monster, and it recoiled for a second at the bullet. It didn’t last long, and as it roared and surged forward with renewed rage his ears were ringing from the shot. Kiara was yelling something but he couldn’t hear her, his hand slipping to his pocket where he kept a jackknife.

Fuck, this better work like it did in the movies. As the slathering head plunged toward the deck again, he dodged to the side, firing the gun. He managed to send the bullet into its mouth, pausing the monster for just a moment. It had missed him by a foot, maybe less, and it stalled right in front of JJ’s face, coughing as if it had swallowed a fly. For a millisecond, he looked into its dinner plate-sized eye, hatred burning in the yellow. Then he stabbed it in the pupil.

It let out an ungodly screech as it pulled away, one eye shut, and at that moment, Kie started the motor. “Go, go, go,” JJ shouted, still aiming at the beast. John B and Pope, now both soaking wet, were huddled against the side of the boat, gaping at their attacker. The HMS Pogue shot across the marsh, and, miraculously, it appeared the creature would not give chase.

JJ trembled at the stern, hands still clamped around the handgun and his knife. The others docked the Pogue outside the Chateau and clambered out of the boat. Jesus, what the actual fuck was that? Kiara’s warm hand wrapped around his wrist, the gun one, and he snapped out of it. Repeated his thoughts aloud.

“I have no idea, but I’m not waiting around for it to find us,” Kie said, visibly pale but obviously trying to stay calm. “We need to get inside.”

John B called Sarah as they gathered in the Chateau. “…I have no idea. Yeah. Fuck, I know. No, I don’t know. Okay. Love you. Bye.” His side of the conversation filled the room, the four friends piled onto the pullout couch. JJ bounced his leg, jittery and terrified but mostly just in a state of shock. Wedged between him and Pope, Kie clutched both of their hands.

John B hung up, “Sarah’s on her way.” And then they all sat in silence for a beat more.

He couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, what the fuck just happened? Was that a fucking sea monster? Pope? You said those things were fake, it seemed pretty fucking real to me!” JJ paced around the room, twisting his cap around his head. “I don’t think I killed it, either. It looked like it was only wounded. If that creepy fucking snake shows up again you can’t expect me to take it again. I shot it in the fucking face! Twice! And it kept going.”

Pope just stared at him, eyes wide. As JJ scanned the faces of his three best friends, all shell-shocked and gaping, he finally realized that, fuck, no one had any answers. No one knew what it was.

“Shit, I was pretty badass though, right?” He tried feebly, thumbing the knife in his pocket. John B cracked half a smile but it faded just as fast.

“John B?” Sarah’s voice preceded her into the shack, and she ran over to the couch to cup his face in her hands. “What the hell happened?”

Eventually, they decided it must have been some sort of sea monster, a sea serpent, like the creatures out of myths. It was near impossible to wrap their heads around, but they had some experience with fantasy becoming reality. Is it true JJ, do you really believe? Well, this was almost easier to believe than a buried wealth of gold, because at least at this point JJ had seen the monster with his own eyes.

Now that they had calmed down a bit, he was also feeling pretty awesome. After about the fifth time he had recounted how he stabbed the monster in the eye and shot it, Kiara cut her eyes at him and he slowed his mouth. “Anyways, it was some next-level shit,” he finished lamely, and slumped back against the window.

They also decided not to tell anyone. “Look at it logically,” John B said, running a hand through his hair, “Sarah and I just got back two months ago, and half the island still thinks I murdered Peterkin. If they don’t believe us about a crime that Ward’s already confessed to, what makes you think they’ll believe we saw an actual fucking sea serpent?”

So instead of going to the cops or the Coast Guard, they went to a party at the Boneyard. “Lay low for real this time, JJ.” Kie shoved him a little with her shoulder. He wrinkled his nose at her, but he still shoved the loaded pistol into his bag before they left. No one faulted him for it this time; the threats seemed a lot larger than Topper and Rafe.

They were all on edge, but JJ did his best to exude normalcy. For him, this meant getting wasted and slinging his arm around a tall, tanned Touron. Kie rolled her eyes at that, so he passed her a blunt as retribution. He stretched out along a smooth, worn piece of driftwood, playing with the girl’s blonde hair. She said her name, but he didn’t pay attention.

The sun started to dip below the horizon and his catch slipped the hook, murmuring apologies between kisses as she pulled away from the beach. He watched her leave apathetically, her hips swinging in her low Daisy Dukes. She passed a skinny, awkward looking guy on her way out, maybe the only person on the beach wearing both shoes and pants, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. His hands picked incessantly at his shirt hem. JJ turned away, vision a bit blurry, prowling back to the driftwood to find his friends, the back of his neck prickling. It felt like the guy was following him.

As he passed it, he grabbed his bag clumsily from the sand. It took a couple tries to wrap his fingers around the straps, and, fuck, he was more wasted than he probably should be to protect the others. He could take that scrawny stalker with his fists, he reasoned, hearing lopsided footsteps behind him.

After a minute of wandering aimlessly around the beach, it appeared he had shaken his follower. He scanned the crowd for the sole pair of jeans, finding the guy sitting on a log next to John B and Sarah. Shit. He could be a cop, or maybe some sort of freak like they saw in the water. Shit. He tried to jog toward them, but the sand was slipping under his feet and everything was just a little bit spinny. The stranger shifted on the log next to his friends and all JJ could do was watch from a distance as he leaned in and spoke, almost intimately, in John B’s ear. JJ’s pulse was pounding, digging in his bag for the gun.

Calmly, slowly, John B and Sarah nodded and spoke to the guy and stood up. Alright, then. JJ let go of the pistol, swinging the bag back onto his back, and affected a leisurely grin as he approached the trio. Maybe he was just some weirdo Touron, right? He stumbled a little over his own boots.

“Who’s this, man?” He wrapped a proprietary arm around John B’s waist, smacking a loud kiss on his cheek, just to fuck with Sarah. Normally, she’d be squealing and tugging her boyfriend closer, but she only glanced his way.

“Get Pope and Kie,” John B said, and his face reminded JJ of when they discovered the Routledge compass, “we need to leave town. Tonight.”

The weirdo, who introduced himself as Jonathan, tried to explain as the group piled into the van, but they had been driving for ten minutes and still nothing made sense. It didn’t help that the poor guy was dealing with five series of questions, and he was looking pretty overwhelmed. “Look,” he was stuttering, “I don’t know how else to explain this to you.” And then he started unbuttoning his pants.

“Woah, dude, we don’t have the cash for a show!” JJ called from the back, but Jonathan just pulled down his jeans while the girls shouted and turned away.

Except there was no show to see, at least not in the way JJ expected. Where his legs should have been, Jonathan had some sort of fur. To make matters worse, his shoes popped off to reveal cloven hooves. “What the hell?” Kiara was yelling.

Pope muttered something about satyrs and fauns, and Jonathan grabbed onto that, relieved. “So you’ve heard of us, great. I was worried you would never catch on.”

“Don’t look at me for catching on,” Pope protested, hands raised and eyes fixed on the hooves in front of him, “I mean, I thought the sea serpent was batshit but this makes absolutely zero sense.”

Jonathan sighed, started chewing absently on the hem of his discarded jeans. “If you all would like to just listen for a minute, let me start at the beginning.”

“I work for Camp Half-Blood. My job is to find demigod children and bring them to camp, where we can train them to live safely in the world. You five are all demigods.” He stopped there, as if that was enough information to fulfill “starting from the beginning.”

“And what the fuck is that?” JJ asked after no one bothered to prompt the creature in front of them.

“Oh, right. Your parents are gods. Greek gods, I assume, but possibly the Roman forms too.”

“Well that doesn’t make sense,” said Kie, “because Pope and I know our parents.”

“Well I guess you don’t, really, because I assure you all five of you smell strongly of demigods.” Jonathan said this nervously, as if worried he might actually be wrong. JJ sniffed at his pit. He couldn’t smell it. “Anyways,” Jonathan continued, “it is highly unusual for five demigods to make it to seventeen without any indication of your existence. It’s even more strange that you are all so close, and that you only just faced your first monster,” he paused here, and nodded at JJ, “good job with that, by the way. You are clearly a very unique group, and it’s critical that we make it to camp as quickly as possible.”

“Where is camp? Where are we even going?” John B asked from the driver’s seat, a very reasonable question given his circumstances.

“Long Island, New York.”

It was around one in the morning when they stopped at a motel outside Norfolk, and by then, JJ’s buzz had completely worn off. They booked three rooms and Pope and JJ did rock-paper-scissors for who would have to bunk with Jonathan. JJ won, eliciting a loud cheer, and Pope slapped a hand around his mouth. “Dude, we’re on stealth mode.”

He bumped his shoulder jovially against Kie’s as they searched for their room in the dimly lit hallway. “Wish we had a black light,” he cracked as Kiara pushed open the door to reveal dingy, yellow-papered walls and two dusty twin beds. She didn’t even gag.

“I don’t know why we’re trusting this guy,” she said abruptly, sitting gingerly on the bedspread. “Just because he has freaking goat legs? He could be some kind of monster too, like that thing in the water yesterday.” She was playing with the bracelets on her wrist, plucking at a loose string.

“Well I don’t trust him. At all.” JJ flopped onto the other bed, dropping the bag with the gun on a table. “It took John B and Sarah all of five seconds to decide to go with him, and for some reason we just went with it. This isn’t normal. Like, we know weird, we’ve done weird, but this is… this is insane.”

“Do you think it has something to do with the gold? Maybe it’s some sort of elaborate trick to get us to confess about last summer.”

JJ scoffed. “If he wants the gold, he can try his best. If he steals it maybe we’d have a better chance of getting a hold of it.” He sounded bitter, he knew, but what else was new. They were all bitter about the gold these days.

“Yeah,” Kie muttered, and slipped into the bathroom to get changed. JJ stared after her, still filled with anxious energy but with nowhere to put it. Something about her seemed really off. He pretended to be asleep when she came out and flicked off the light.

After a few minutes, she whispered again in the dark, “JJ? You think my parents are really my parents, right?” and he thought about it for a second, breathing deeply as if asleep.

“Of course, Kie,” he said finally, and reached his hand across the space between their beds. She saw it faintly in the light from the window and wrapped her fingers around his. They didn’t say anything more.

When he was sure Kiara had fallen asleep for real, JJ slipped out of her loose grip on his hand. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d done that, it had felt weirdly intimate to hold her hand in the dark. He thought about her question, realizing that if they had other parents, gods or whatever, that meant that maybe he had a mom. Or even better, maybe his dad wasn’t his dad at all. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, either, but the thinking had become too much, and he drifted off to sleep.

In the morning they all met in the motel lobby, nursing paper cups of shitty coffee from the urn at the desk. John B and Sarah emerged last, their hair ruffled and cheeks flushed, and the Pogues booed and gagged at their smirks. Jonathan watched them interact for a bit, then prodded them nervously out the door. “The longer we stay in one place, the more danger we are in,” he said nervously, gnawing on his shirt collar. Nervous seemed to be the default setting with this guy.

As they drove across the bridge-tunnel through Chesapeake Bay, Jonathan tried to fill them in more on their situation. JJ still had no clue what was going on, but he didn’t trust the goat-man yet either, so he let Pope take lead on the questions. Which was the best plan anyways, since Pope pulled out a pre-written list of questions from his pocket.

“Okay, first of all, what exactly is Camp Half-Blood?” The satyr launched into the details, and JJ picked out something about flying horses and lava. The lava sounded pretty sick, at least. He wasn’t sure if he liked horses. After a while he tuned them out, dragging absently on his Juul. This stuff sounded cool and all, but he figured it would be better to wait until he saw it. For the wow factor and all that.

At least then, if this was an elaborate hoax, he wouldn’t get his hopes up.

When they stopped for lunch in Delaware, Pope had taken reams of notes and Sarah was chatting happily with Jonathan. The goat had loosened up a little, as people often did under Sarah’s smile, and had finally managed to give Pope some comprehensive answers. Kiara was still quiet. As soon as John B parked the van, JJ pushed past her to hit the pavement. “I gotta piss,” he called behind him, and booked it to the McDonalds. He was hoping that would fire her up a little, but when he saw her standing at the counter she barely sent him any side eye. This whole parents thing must have really been getting to her.

Realistically, JJ knew the situation should be getting to him, too. He had two options, and neither of them was particularly bad. He either had a mom who wasn’t entirely a piece of shit, or at least had a better reason for leaving him than a drug addiction, or he had a different dad entirely, which definitely wasn’t the worst possibility in the world. He hoped it was a mom, though. Out of wanting a mother or some twisted loyalty to his father, he wasn’t sure.

Obviously, Kie’s options were not that good.

They all shoved into a single booth in the corner, the Pogues wolfing down burgers and Sarah and Jonathan picking at salads.

“Surely you worked up an appetite last night,” JJ goaded Sarah, getting a straw wrapper to the face. He stuck his tongue out a John B and his friend lunged across the table as if to lick it. JJ fended him off with a hand to the face.

“Oh, if you’re not gonna eat that…” Jonathan said wistfully, staring at the straw wrapper, and JJ flicked the paper toward him. The satyr smiled gratefully and popped the wrapper in his mouth.

“What the actual fuck man.”

Jonathan’s face blushed beet red.

Pope tried to summarize what he’d learned between bites. Apparently, this Camp Half-Blood was exclusively for demigods, kids who were half human and half god. It trained them to be soldiers, fighting monsters like they saw in the marsh and completing quests from the gods. The theological aspect of it all was still shaky for all of them, but none of them were devout Christians and they figured many gods was no crazier than one. A few times, Jonathan tried to jump in with more details, but Pope cut him off. “No offense, man, but you are balls at explaining this shit.”

“You know what’s weird?” John B said suddenly as they were gathering up their trash, “Three of us are named John. I’m a John, JJ is technically a John, and so is Jonathan.” They were contemplating this fact and JJ was about to make a comment about the other kind of John when a low scraping sound filled the restaurant.

JJ’s hand immediately went to his bag for his gun. “Well, what do we have here?” came a voice, cold and sharp, and suddenly a man was standing in front of them, as if he had leaped down from the ceiling. “Five demigods and a scared little amateur satyr? How charming.”

Something snapped inside JJ’s mind, as if a muscle that had been tight for too long was pressed, and then the man before them transformed into something horrific. His body became furred and his limbs became sharp-clawed paws, like that of a cat. A scrape echoed through the room again, and a long, spike-covered tail rose into view behind him.

JJ said weakly, “Jesus, these furries have gotten extreme,” and John B wacked him on the head on reflex.

“You, you…” Jonathan trailed off in terror, and JJ waited for him to say something, anything, that would explain this situation or at least defuse it. This goat-man was supposed to be their guide after all, and he wasn’t doing much guiding at the moment.

“Out of your depth? Pity,” crooned the creature, and JJ realized that, as usual, there was no one coming to save them. JJ to the rescue, as usual. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at the head of the thing in front of him.

“Lay a hand on any of us and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.” He sounded fiercer than he felt.

The monster only laughed at that, and then lunged toward the group. No time to think, no time to speak, JJ started firing. “Run, go!” he shouted to the others, hoping that they would scatter in time to avoid whatever the hell this thing was about to do. If one of them was going to die, it might as well be him.

As the bullets hit him in the head, the man-lion-spiky-fucker seemed to be absorbing them. JJ pulled the trigger again and again, maybe one of them would hit the right spot, but nothing happened as the creature got closer and closer. It was prowling like a cat, claws scraping on the tile floor, its metallic tail swinging as it approached. So this is how he dies, JJ thought manically, and then laughed like a crazy person. His gun clicked, out of bullets, and he laughed again, a cold sound that he could only attribute to fear. And then the creature was upon him.

Dodging the first blow, he plunged his hand into his pocket to retrieve his jackknife and a lighter. Not exactly a semi-automatic, but they might do in a pinch. He could hear Sarah screaming, then sobbing, but it was vague in his ears. He flicked the lighter, hoping that at least a little flame might do some damage.

As the monster flew past him, it swung its tail to spit spikes toward the door. “Duck!” JJ shouted, and Sarah screamed again, her voice rising over the sound of breaking glass. 

Then the creature spun around to face him once more, and he lost track of his friends. “I’ve heard of you, JJ Maybank,” said the creature in its smooth, vicious voice, “more powerful than you were meant to be. You aren’t made for greatness, you should know.”

Somehow, this enraged JJ more than the attack, and he adjusted his grip on the knife. “What else is new,” he said, and then charged at the monster with a ridiculous but probably fitting war cry.

The monster lashed out with its claws, eight inches long and wicked sharp, but by some miracle JJ was able to duck them, and suddenly he was punching it in the face with his hand with the lighter. It hurt a lot more than any other punch had, but he managed to stick the hot end into the creature’s nose. The monster roared, a deep sound of fury and pain, and then it reared up and found purchase on JJ’s shoulders with its paws and pulled him down, harshly, to the floor. Its claws tore into his back and he cried out, feeling hot blood bubble from his wounds.

“Fuck, JJ!” came a yell from by the door, and he cursed his friends for sticking around while he failed to beat this thing. None of them had a weapon, and even if they did it wouldn’t do much. Now they were all dead. Fuck.

He was coming to terms with his death, which in general tended to take him about ten minutes so he was speedrunning it, when the pressure of a thousand-pound beast on his back disappeared. Another roar of pain, and then his friends were surrounding him and arguing over his body, and if this was how he was going to go out at least it was fitting to the rest of his life. He blacked out, then.

He woke up in the van, facedown on the floor with Kie’s hands pressing gently on his back. He knew it was Kie by the coconut shampoo and guava candies he could smell, and then he knew he was safe. “What the fuck…” he moaned, trying to roll over, and Jonathan appeared above him.

“Here, drink this,” the satyr said soothingly, and tipped a small bottle into his mouth. JJ swallowed and felt warmth running through his body, like laying on a dock when the clouds clear out. “Nectar,” Jonathan explained to Kiara, “it can aid in the healing.”

Then JJ passed out again.

When he awoke for the second time, the van was moving. He felt sore, but not in excruciating pain like before. Kie was holding his hand again, and he didn’t announce his lucidity for a minute, just to preserve the moment. As he expected, she let go as soon as he cleared his throat.

“So, that bastard was a sight worse than even my father,” he said, “how the hell am I still alive?”

It took the Pogues a few minutes to stop telling him how much they loved him, and also that he was a fucking idiot, before they actually got around to explaining his current, breathing, state. John B, forever a sap, kissed his own fingers and stuck his hand behind the seat to press against JJ’s forehead. Kiara took a less subtle approach and kissed him swiftly on the cheek. He waggled his eyebrows at that, and she pretended not to notice.

“It was Kie and Pope,” John B said finally, admiration obvious in his voice, “they got a bucket of boiling oil from the kitchen and doused that… thing. It was insane.”

“It evaporated, basically, after that,” Pope cut in, eyes shining at this discovery.

“Aw, poor Pope, no body left to examine?”

“Dude, you have no idea how exciting this is. The fact that this thing didn’t leave a corporeal form has so many possibilities for study –“

“We know, Pope, you’ve been talking about it for an hour,” Kiara said, and then turned to Jonathan. “So, now that we’re all in the land of the living, can you tell us what the hell just happened?”

“A manticore,” Jonathan explained, shuddering a little. This time, he was chewing on a spare bandage, which JJ figured couldn’t be sanitary. “Percy Jackson fought one before. You might meet him if he’s at camp. Bad monster, very powerful. And concerning, that he was able to track us.” He looked around suspiciously, but maybe also a bit nervous at the answer. It was hard to tell with Jonathan. “Have any of you been on your cell phones?”

Kie looked down and mumbled, “I was texting my parents this morning. They were worried.” There was silence in the van. The night before, Jonathan had explained to them that cell phone use could help monsters track and attack the group, and since then everyone had kept their phones on airplane.

“Kie, JJ could have died,” Pope said, sounding hesitant. JJ felt Kiara’s knees shift on the van floor, her body hunching a little over his.

“Well he didn’t, because we saved him. So blame me all you want but I got us out of this mess, too.”

Sarah placed a comforting hand on Kie’s shoulder, and she leaned into the touch. “We aren’t blaming you.”

After that, the energy in the van was a little weird.

They made it to Long Island, finally, after nearly ten hours of driving. John B was exhausted from staying at the wheel the whole time, but it was universally acknowledged that he was the only competent driver of the Pogues. “We’re almost there,” Jonathan said softly, his expression finally looking more optimistic than anxious.

Jonathan’s this is it meant nothing to them as they drove toward an empty looking strawberry farm. The road was dusty and lined with sparse wood, and the approaching hill had nothing much to boast. JJ was feeling almost recovered, sitting up now on a bench, facing Pope. “So, uh, where’s the camp?” he asked, and Pope shushed him, staring raptly at the hill over John B’s shoulder.

Then, where there was absolutely nothing to see, there was suddenly movement and people. “How the fuck?” JJ muttered under his breath, and he turned to meet Kie’s eyes. She looked back at him with the same wonder. John B pulled to a stop outside of a simple stone arch.

“Alright, we should probably get out of the van to enter,” Jonathan said, a different kind of anxious than usual. The many faces of Jonathan: anxious, different anxious, and hungry. The goat was starting to get on JJ’s nerves. The rest of the Pogues jumped easily from the van, but JJ felt like he had been run through a cheese grater as he bent to exit. Fuck.

A crowd was forming on the other side of a lone pine tree, all wearing orange t-shirts and necklaces like some sort of cult. JJ thought he saw at least a couple swords strapped to people’s hips, which made him feel a bit better.

“They look old.”

“Are they Romans?”

“I’ve literally never seen these people in my life.”

“Who’s the hottie?”

Then a large, white horse trotted into the crowd, ridden by a greying man with a white beard. JJ said, “You know, I don’t know if I like horses,” and then wanted to punch himself in the face because firstly, why the hell did he say that, and secondly, it was beginning to look like that horse was part of the man himself.

“You must be JJ Maybank,” the horse-man said.

The next few hours were a blur. It was almost meal time when they arrived, but there were so many things to see and welcome presentations to watch that they ended up arriving at the picnic tables late, with everyone already eating. The five of them were hustled over to one of the more crowded tables, mostly young kids with a few older campers near their age. Travis Stoll, a guy that JJ thought he could learn to like, shook their hands and introduced them around. The younger kids were all unclaimed, he explained, but should know their godly parent by their thirteenth birthday.

“Mine’s in six days!” a young girl who looked a bit like Wheezie said, and Sarah smiled and leaned into John B.

The magical food and drink situation fascinated both Pope and JJ, but for entirely different reasons. JJ focused on asking for weird foods, and then reverted to just asking for as much as possible. Pope asked a lot of questions.

One thing that kept coming up was their age. Specifically, how did they get to be seventeen and stay un-murdered and unclaimed? By law, they should have been claimed by now, especially after setting foot in the camp. And for that matter, how did no one know they existed?

None of them knew how to field these questions, so they just kept their mouths full and let Travis try his best. “Probably more of Hera’s tricks,” he said resentfully, “you can talk to Piper about that later.” That didn’t make any sense to them either.

That night, they slept in sleeping bags on the floor of Hermes Cabin. It was a weird sense of normalcy, to all be piled up together, just the Pogues. JJ could feel Kiara’s breath, hot and wet, on his cheek as he fell asleep, and he let himself hope for a future here.

In the morning, it seemed like someone had given an okay, because the Pogues were mobbed with curious campers almost immediately and with far more enthusiasm than before. A gorgeous girl who said she was from Aphrodite asked JJ about fighting the sea serpent and the manticore. She oohed and aahed over his stories and he allowed himself a little exaggeration, pulling over the side of his orange t-shirt, from which he had already slashed the sleeves, to show her the healing scars. “I bet I can make those feel better,” she giggled, and JJ played with a bead on her necklace.

“JJ, fuck, stop flirting and get your ass over here!” It was Kiara, clearly overwhelmed by the crowd around her.

As he walked away he heard the girl being reprimanded, “he’s hot enough to be our brother, wait till he’s claimed!” Well, that was a turn off.

By lunch time, the questions and curiosity seemed to have worn off, and everyone was back to doing the completely normal activities of sparring, pegasus riding, and rock climbing. “Hey, is there a place we can surf here?” JJ asked Travis, and was pointed in the direction of a dark-haired, lean guy coaching the sparring.

“Talk to Percy. Who knows, he might even be your brother.”

“JJ Maybank,” Percy greeted him before JJ had even said a word. He had an easy smile that reminded JJ of John B. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about you, too. Something about you being all-powerful and saving the camp.”

Percy blushed a little, ducking his head. “I had help.”

“I was hoping there would be a way to go surfing here. We’re big into that. Surfing, I mean.” JJ was aware that he sounded like a bit of an idiot, but Percy didn’t seem to care.

“Yeah, of course, I can talk to Chiron to get some time at the sound. Won’t be like what you’re used to in North Carolina, though.”

JJ laughed. “Is anything?”

That afternoon, Chiron gave them the go-ahead to go down to the beach, pulling some sub-par boards from a dusty old storage shed. Percy was right, the surf was shit. But at least they were together and doing something normal.

“Remember when we thought finding buried treasure was exciting?” John B said, floating on his board in the mostly dead waves.

Pope paddled over to JJ’s board and lay flat, interlocking their fingers. “Never thought I’d miss the square groupers, but here we are.” JJ flipped him off his board with a turn of his wrists, and Pope came up spluttering.

It was easy, the five of them laughing and splashing and generally attempting to drown one another. Sarah maintained leverage on her board and dunked the other four in the water, her joyous laughter morphing into a shriek as JJ and Kiara flipped her board. Her hair plastered flat to her head and she wound her arms around John B’s neck, leaning in for a kiss before pushing his head underwater at the last second.

“You’re evil, Val!” he yelled and spit out water, swimming after his girlfriend.

After a while, the chill of the water started to get to them and they paddled back to shore. Obviously, Long Island water was far inferior to the North Carolina ocean. JJ was pretty sure his lips were blue.

“So I have some theories,” Pope started as they retrieved their clothes, and they all groaned a little. He took it in stride. “I’ve been asking around about the whole claiming thing, and our godly parents are supposed to have claimed us by now. Now, John B, JJ, and Sarah, I think it’s pretty obvious to assume it’s your mother that was a god. Or goddess, I guess. Big John always said his wife was dead, and your mothers have been MIA forever. No offense.” JJ and Sarah both nodded at this, but JJ figured she was as conflicted about this as he was. As far as shitty fathers went, he and Sarah had won the jackpot.

“Most people at camp are convinced we have powerful parents,” Pope continued, pulling on his sneakers, “because of how weird our situation is. If this is some sort of prophecy or big plan, it’s unlikely that we have minor god parents. And pretty much everyone thinks we’re children of Poseidon. Which would be gross, actually, that would make us all siblings.”

“And this is why there’s no Pogue-on-Pogue macking,” JJ said jokingly, but he felt a bit sick at the thought.

“I don’t believe that theory though,” Pope added hurriedly, “so don’t worry, lovebirds.”

Sarah’s face had gotten a bit red. “So what’s your theory, then?”

“Well, this is the part where it gets confusing. There’s another camp, one on the West coast, where the children of Roman gods live. Which doesn’t make much sense at all, because they’re all the same gods, just different forms. But if we have Roman parents, they aren’t bound to claiming us the way the Greek gods are. I think we got mixed up, and the wrong camp came looking for us.”

JJ stared at him for a second. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me. Too complicated.”

“I know, it makes no sense. I was talking to this guy, Will, he’s a son of Apollo, and his boyfriend travels between the two camps. He thinks it’s the only option that could work. Especially since the Romans have some other powerful goddesses. No offense, JJ, but there’s no way your mom is Demeter or Athena.”

“I don’t know what those words mean,” JJ said proudly, and Pope sighed.

“That’s kind of my point.”

They stowed the boards and made their way toward the amphitheatre for the bonfire. They were late again, dripping water on the ground and generally drawing attention to themselves as they slipped into the crowd. The fire stayed burning bright, but it faded from red to yellow as the Pogues sat awkwardly in a corner, shoulder-to-shoulder and ducking away from the stares.

Whispers broke out among all the campers, and the singing stopped.

“Is this another Piper and Leo situation?”

“Not again, who are we gonna fight this time?”

An elfin-looking guy with a red bandana called out to them, “where are you guys from, Camp Fish-Blood?” No one laughed, and he got some irritated looks, which he shrugged off.

Then the fire roared higher, and the mutters stopped abruptly. Everyone in the camp was staring at them, openly now, and JJ wondered if he had something on his face. He turned to Kiara on his left, and gazed in awe at a golden, harp-like thing floating above her head. “Kie, what the fuck is that?” he hissed, and she stared at a spot above his head.

“No, JJ, you’ve got one too. We all do.”

It was Will who broke the awed silence of the campfire, standing up from his spot close to the fire and grinning at Kiara. “Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, sister.”

And then the amphitheatre exploded into chatter.

It turned out all of Pope’s theories were way off base. None of them had a trident, the sign of Poseidon, or any indication that they weren’t Greek demigods. Pope was mobbed by a crowd of mostly blond campers, a gray owl glowing faintly above his head.

JJ turned to John B and couldn’t stop himself from laughing. Unlike Pope and Kie, with the holographic symbols floating above their heads, John B was washed in a rainbow light. He looked like a pride flag. A huge guy with a shaved head was greeting him with a pat on the shoulder, which almost knocked John B over. Sarah was still clinging to his hand, but, fuck, she looked hot. Like a supermodel, even more than usual. JJ had to look away. She was flocked by over a dozen other beautiful people, including the blonde chick he had met that morning. Not his sister, then. That was a bonus.

JJ wondered idly where his siblings were. The rest of the Pogues were accepting hugs and talking awkwardly to their new family, but he was standing alone in by the fire, flicking his lighter nervously. He sought for Kie in the crowd, but she was ensconced in a group of tanned, smiling teens.

A pointy guy slipped out from the shadows next time him, startling him, and he turned with his fists raised. “Chill, man, I’m your brother. The name’s Damien White.” The guy stuck out his hand and JJ just stared at it, wondering why he was being so cagey. Damien shrugged and put his hand back in his pocket. “Welcome to Nemesis Cabin. We’ve got a big problem.”


	2. Locked Swords and Prophecies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is a bit shorter, and I probably shouldn't even be posting it all, seeing as I have about two million biochem and microbio assignments due tomorrow. But why would I do my course work when I can write a story about imaginary people, right?
> 
> Also, I finally figured out how to format stuff on this site, so now I'm making use of italics. Hurrah!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

When _The Phantom_ was towed out from two feet below the surface and miles off the coast, JJ felt something break inside him. Pope and Kiara were with him, sitting rigid in the Chateau, while Deputy Shoupe shifted on his heels. His voice cracked a few times while he read the report. To his credit, he didn’t give the Pogues the stiff hugs and shoulder pats that most of the adults around them had.

It didn’t matter. JJ watched him with his stupid fucking mustache and his dark pit stains and he wanted to kill him. He wanted to put a gun against his head and pull the trigger, wanted to smash his ugly fat head through the window and hold his face to the glass until it bled. Wanted to kill Shoupe the way he had killed John B. Maybe he could drown him, that was how John B had gone, right? Hold his head underwater until his lungs couldn’t help themselves and he gasped in fish piss and salt. When a cop was that fucking incompetent, JJ figured he didn’t deserve to live.

He kept these thoughts to himself, focusing on the bite of his nails in his palm. Shoupe left quietly, and JJ didn’t even hit him once. It was a herculean effort.

Pope held Kiara gently against his chest, her sobs muffled against his heart. JJ wanted to touch them, to cry with them, but he wasn’t sure anymore where he stood in their group. Fuck. In their trio, now.

He slammed the door on the way out and heard Kie call after him. Then he went to visit his Dad.

Sitting on a top bunk in Cabin 16, JJ felt like an outsider again. Four teens, his apparent siblings, were strapping on armour and sheathing shiny bronze swords at their hips. In literally any other situation, this would be JJ’s ideal night. Tonight, though, things were a lot less cool than they appeared.

_“What kind of problem,” JJ had said, running a hand over his hair before replacing his red cap, “like financial? Drug dealers? I can help with that.”_

_Damien chuckled hollowly. “I wish it were that easy. No, we’ve got the murderer kind of problem.”_

_“Well, shit, I can help with that one too.”_

The cabin was smooth polished wood and leather accents, the corners of the building bathed in darkness, like reverse-lamps were sucking up the light. A huge set of obsidian scales dominated the center. JJ had tried to touch it when he walked in, but Damien slapped his hand away. “Not unless you want a chat with Mom tonight. Trust me, you don’t.”

His three brothers and sister were careful as they pulled the leather armour straps over their shoulders and grimly fastened scabbards. Julian, the youngest at twelve, sported a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. Navya walked with a limp. They were all younger than 17, but they reminded JJ of the Legion men from the cut. The ones with one leg or one hand or the shakes. He jumped down from the bunk.

“So do I get a sword? Or a gun? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you guys to have guns anyways?”

Navya studied him doubtfully, pulling her long black hair into a bun. “I don’t trust him with a sword. Do you, Ozan?” Ozan just laughed, and JJ wanted to punch him in the face.

“Seriously, just give me a sword or something. I stabbed a fucking sea serpent, I think I can handle some teenage girl. Shit, could I get like a fucking lightsaber or something?” He made a grab for the long, curved knife strapped to Navya’s back and she caught his arm with one hand. Her eyes were suddenly deeply dangerous, and JJ backed off. “Alright, Jesus.” He rubbed his arm and glared back at her.

“We need to head out now. We’re losing time.” She glanced at Damien who shook his head slightly, some silent signal that just reminded JJ of how out-of-the-loop he was. “Tonight is a defensive mission. JJ, I think it’s best for everyone if you stayed watch in the cabin.”

“That’s bullshit, what, you think I’ll get killed by some fourteen-year-old?”

“No, I think you’ll get killed by the hellhounds and the loose hydra in the woods.”

JJ had no idea what those were, but it didn’t sound good. He watched her for a second, waiting for her to wink or grin. She didn’t. “Alright, yeah, fair enough. No good if I get killed, I guess.”

Damien passed him a blunt-looking broadsword and patted him on the back on his way out. The rest of his siblings ignored him. “Let’s go get our sister.”

All that JJ could gather from the explanation Damien gave him was that he had a second sister named Jessenia, and that she had gone insane. Something about making a deal with Mom (another concept JJ was not at all used to) and not keeping up her side of the bargain. “She never sleeps,” Damien had said, “she just watches us all night. Sometimes she’s in the trees, other times she morphs into the shadows. But if we don’t go out there, she comes to us.” Julian had winced at this, his hand half-raising to where his ear used to be.

Because people in this weird camp were apparently terrible at explaining anything, JJ still wasn’t sure on why or how their mother had fucked Jessenia up. That, at least, made sense. In his experience, parents didn’t need a reason to fuck up their kids.

For a while, he sat on the steps of the cabin and watched the torches burning above the other cabin doors. Apollo cabin was surrounded by yellow flowers that let off a glow in the moonlight. JJ loved flowers. The Iris cabin was interesting, with its pulsing glow like natural rainbow LEDS, and several other cabins were surrounded with an emanating light, but he kept returning to the flowers, a little garden that made the modest cabin look friendly.

That got boring pretty quick, though.

Pacing inside his apparent new home, JJ swung the broad sword around his head. He backed a pretend foe against the wall, spitting in his face and whispering in his ear, “I could slit your throat right now.” Tried his backpack out as a shield, then attempted to flip his sword and almost cut off his fingers. He decided that one-handed was coolest, gave him a badass vigilante feel. Even the sword got old, after a while, and he laid down face-up on the floor. It had probably only been fifteen minutes.

The obsidian scale hung ominously above him. He wasn’t supposed to touch that.

JJ reached up and touched the scale.

“Emma?”

The woman who looked like Emma glared down at him, standing above his body. “No. Mom. Although I’m curious about this Emma.”

JJ swore and sat up, scrambling backward across the floor. “How the fuck did you…” The woman shook her head and her face morphed from the pinched, haughty features of Emma Swinler to an annoyed-looking light-skinned woman.

“JJ, I don’t appreciate the interruptions. Make it quick; what do you need?”

He stared at her for a minute, still stuck on her looking like the bitchy 7/11 cashier from ninth grade. She always watched JJ too close in the store, calling the cops on him more than once for something as simple as a chocolate bar. He had wanted to do something, come over the counter at her or maybe key her car, when she asked him for the hundredth time, “are you sure you can afford that, Maybank?”

“Need?”

“Oh come on, son, I know there’s lots of things you need. Plenty of people you want to kill. I can help you with that, although my prices are a bit steep.” As she said it, the images flashed through his mind: Rafe, head smashed open, lying twisted on the concrete. Ward with a bullet through each knee and then one in the skull. Luke dead on the couch, finally dead, because JJ had finally pulled the trigger. The visions came faster, Topper, Kelse, Deputy Shoupe, fucking Emma Swinler, Barry, and then they stopped just as suddenly.

JJ lurched forward as if he had been in a speeding car that slammed on the brakes.

“They would deserve it. So, what do you need?”

He wished, later, that he had said something practical like “answers” or “the gold,” but the revenge fantasies had given him a headache and all he really wanted was for the whole experience to be over.

“I really need you to fuck off.”

When she laughed, JJ’s head prickled like from Miss Lana’s amateur acupuncture. He blacked out for a moment, and when he woke, she was gone.

That was how JJ met his mom.

His siblings came back just before sunrise. They looked exhausted, Julian especially, but there were no new injuries. JJ decided it would not work in his favour to tell them about breaking the one rule he was given, so he kept his mouth shut for once.

Jessenia had evaded capture once again.

Damien had pretty much given up on peaceful mediation. Despite their best efforts, it had been 43 days since Jessenia had run off into the woods, and she’d hardly acted human in the times they’d seen her since. “It’s like she’s always an animal backed in a corner,” Damien sighed, head in his hands, “and at some point we’ve got to put her down.”

No one else in camp knew about their sister’s problems, assuming she had left camp for some innocuous reason. “It’s a family issue,” Navya reasoned, which JJ figured he could respect, “we’ll handle it as a family.”

Of the siblings, Julian and Damien were pretty warm towards JJ and Navya seemed to tolerate him, but Ozan was still a brick wall. JJ didn’t really care. He knew Ozan’s type, thinking they were morally superior because they could control their impulses and followed the rules. The stick-up-their-ass type. JJ could pick them out of a crowd, they acted like Pope except judgemental.

“Don’t worry about him, he has visions,” Julian whispered to JJ as they left for breakfast. JJ prodded him for information, but the young boy didn’t offer anything more.

Seeing John B’s face across the pavilion gave JJ a rush of euphoria that erased his fatigue from the sleepless night. The bulky guy from the campfire was scraping food into a fire, chatting quietly with John B with a smile on his face. They seemed to have buddied up already, and JJ felt a moment of jealousy. Then John B spotted him and ran over, did the Pogue handshake, and everything felt normal again.

“You look weird with an actual shirt on,” JJ said, tugging at the orange cotton t-shirt. “I miss your rock-hard abs.” John B shoved him with his shoulder.

Technically, they were supposed to sit with their siblings, but John B only had two: Butch the mountain, and a tiny eight-year-old name Eloise. The idea of eating with his Suicide Squad siblings didn’t sound very appealing to JJ, so he sat at the Iris table.

“How’s Sarah fitting in?” He could see her at the Aphrodite table, still looking like a goddess, her many brothers and sisters talking animatedly. John B turned and caught her eye, and they had a pseudo-telepathic conversation with their faces.

“She likes them,” he finally said, facing JJ again. “She’ll meet up with us later.” JJ scoffed at their puppy-eyed stares, and was about to make some comment, when he got distracted.

The Apollo kids walked in, and he wondered for a second if Kiara was actually a daughter of Aphrodite. Whatever beauty charm Sarah had gotten, she had to have it too. Kiara was always hot, super hot, and JJ had always been happy to flirt with her and let her know. But now… Her wavy hair was swinging loose with a few tiny braids at the front, and she had folded her bright orange shirt into a low crop. Something about the normally ugly colour set off the gold tones in her skin. She laughed at something her sunny-looking brother, Will, said, and JJ suddenly had to focus really hard on his toast.

“Kie’s here.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Think she’ll come sit with us?”

“Let’s find out,” John B waved wildly at her and made a reeling gesture, and Kie half-salsaed over.

For a moment, JJ tried to play it cool, eating his breakfast and avoiding looking at her. He had no idea why he was doing this, because it was just Kie, and he had seen Kie in a crop top and less a thousand times before, heard her laugh a million times, and had been the one to make her laugh at least once. And now that they were here, and she was waving at some Aphrodite boy, and hugging John B before she reached for him, nothing should have really changed. Somehow it felt like it had.

Then her arms wrapped around his neck for a quick hug, and JJ remembered who they were. They were the Pogues, and everything would be fine.

“Where’s Pope?” She swung a long leg over the picnic bench to sit down, and JJ felt a surge of happiness that she had chosen to sit next to him. They glanced around the dining area to find Pope gesticulating wildly in a group of his Athena siblings, not even noticing the food he was shoving in his mouth.

“Can’t believe he’s gonna leave us for the nerds,” JJ was really only half-joking. Kie laughed as if no part of the comment was sincere.

“So, JJ, what’s it like in the shadow cabin? That’s what we call you guys, apparently, because we’re kids of the sun god. Are they as scary as they look?” She nodded at the Nemesis table a few rows over, where JJ’s siblings were listlessly eating. His stomach clenched for a second, wondering what they thought of him abandoning the family on his first day. But that was stupid, the Pogues were more family to him than these so-called siblings ever would be.

All the same, he only said “they’re fucking wack.” Ozan was eyeing him and he had the distinct feeling that he heard every word JJ said. His brother looked down after that, and JJ felt like he had passed some sort of test.

John B said, “check this out, it’s so cool,” and JJ tried to focus on the objectively awesome power that Butch had been showing, forming a little rainbow cloud in his hand and levitating it above the table.

There was obviously a lot more going on with his siblings than Damien had told him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

Sparring practice was definitely the coolest thing JJ had done so far at camp. Unlike the sword he had held that night, they practiced with wooden sticks, but that also meant they could actually hit each other. It was everything JJ had tried to create in grade school recess, except that he didn’t have to go sit on a bench when the adults found out.

Percy, the surfer guy, was a good teacher. He didn’t laugh at Kie’s natural incompetence, although JJ did, which earned him a glare and a clumsy stab in the gut. She laughed at his wheezing, and he thought it was probably worth it.

JJ, on the other hand, was a prodigy with a sword. “You’re made for hand-to-hand combat,” Percy said excitedly, after they came to a draw for the third time, “most demigods have a natural ability to react and anticipate moves, but you fight like you’ve had practice.”

He grinned proudly and crowed to Kie and Pope, pulling off his shirt and tying his bandana around his head. Sword fighting was predictably exhausting, and finally seeing some action, even if it was just practice, gave him that achy thrill of a fight.

They watched Sarah spar with John B, who promised not to hurt her. She laughed at that, holding the stick-sword in front of her with a practiced ease. JJ was reminded that she played tennis.

After the first strike and parry, it looked like the couple was evenly matched. They locked swords and John B grinned at her, his face softening as he watched her. She winked and then shoved him back, her feet immediately falling back into a ready stance.

The next time, John B struck first. She dodged the blow with a small shriek, twisting her hips out of the way and bouncing on her toes. His footing was clumsy, and she slid to the side as he lunged past her. What she lost in reach, it was clear that Sarah gained it back in athleticism, and she went on the attack while John B was regaining his balance.

Their weapons whacked loudly in the sparring clearing, and a group of green-skinned girls materialized out of the woods to watch. Dryads, Pope told JJ.

The couple locked swords again.

This time, Sarah leaned in a little as if she was about to kiss him, her gaze flicking down to his lips. John B looked pained. Her leg slipped behind his. Sarah’s shiny hair whipped behind her as she spun, and then suddenly her lover-boy was on the ground in a cloud of dust. She rested the tip of her stick on John B’s throat and smiled sweetly, “better luck next time, Vlad,” and the group of dryads cheered.

John B let out a whoop as she hauled him to his feet, kissing her exuberantly in the middle of the clearing. The dryads were even more excited about that, and JJ was pretty sure one of them swooned. He glanced at Pope and Kie to laugh at the whole situation and found Kie already watching him. He couldn’t read her eyes. She looked away quickly, and they all went to congratulate Sarah.

Before dinner time, all five of them were requested at the Big House, the main building of the camp. Pope practically skipped the whole way, talking about how he wanted to “pick Chiron’s brain” about their strange circumstances. The others followed at a more normal pace, and JJ felt like when he was called to the principal’s office. Whatever they had done wrong, it was probably his fault.

Jonathan was waiting for them outside the Big House, chewing on a pop can, this time. He relaxed a little as he counted them, and JJ hit him affectionately on the back, just to loosen him up. They had been in the building before, and spoken to Chiron already, too, but something about this meeting felt more formal.

In JJ’s experience, formal was never good.

Chiron greeted them kindly, asking benign questions about how they liked the activities and the food. Then a loud pop filled the room and the centaur hastily arranged an apologetic expression on his face. The air smelled like wine, the good stuff that Rose drank. Old wine.

“More brats for me, Chiron?” The voice was whiny, but not in a nasal way. A pudgy, short man appeared from behind Chiron’s horse-half, and JJ thought that whoever this was, he definitely would fit in with the tourons in the OBX.

He was wearing a loud leopard-print shirt and knee-length white shorts, reflective sunglasses and a bucket hat completing the look. Under the bridge of his glasses, his nose was red and spider-veined. “Oh, how wonderful, there’s five of them. Just what I wanted for a Saturday afternoon.”

Chiron waved vaguely at them and looked like he was about to introduce them.

“I know who they are. Yes, I definitely know these five. James C, your father was quite an interesting man. I met him once. Make of that what you will.”

John B looked confused, pointing a hesitant thumb at his own chest.

“Yes, you, don’t you know your own name? Although James C is a pretty stupid one, if you ask me. Who needs a second initial, there’s no other Jameses!”

“Um, it’s John B, sir.”

The odd little man ignored him.

“Now you, Pete, you’re an interesting case. A godly surrogate mother, that situation gave my father hives. I still don’t think it was the wisest choice, but the opinion is split on that. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

Pope just stared at him, wheels visibly turning. The man laughed and turned to Kiara and Sarah.

“Apollo’s brat, well, you came about the usual way, didn’t you? No one can ever resist Apollo. And you, Samantha, how does it feel to know your family is the most normal of them all? Ward Cameron, now that’s a man even I would have kissed. Shame about the whole murdering business, but nothing we can’t move on from. That rugged face…”

He turned to JJ next, but only looked him up and down and laughed quietly. JJ felt a wave of rage wash over him and he clenched his fist, watching this fat old drunk laugh at him. He waited for the man to say something, maybe something he would be justified in decking him over, but he only walked over the long boardroom table and leaned against it.

“So have you figured it all out yet?” His tone was mocking, now, and directed at Pope. Pope’s brow was furrowed and he opened his mouth to speak, but touron-guy cut him off. “Yes, very good, but I’d prefer if you called me Mr. D. Saves us from unnecessary maimings.” Pope tapped his head as if water had run out of his ear, and JJ was reminded of his mother’s mind-manipulation last night.

Chiron interfered then, “sir, I have to caution you with this. Remember the Hermes kid? We don’t want another hallucination situation.”

“I am perfectly in control, Chiron.” His voice was cold, unyielding. The smell of grapes heightened in the room, and Mr. D looked taller, less harmless. “And that child deserved it. A demigod’s mind is a tenuous thing, and if they are too weak, it might just snap.” JJ shivered. It felt like the room had just dopped three degrees.

Mr. D returned the room to normal and looked back at Pope. “That’s all you understand? Who I am, a bit about who you are? Well you certainly wouldn’t make Athena proud with that.” He swished his hand dismissively at the line of demigods and turned to leave. “I’ll never understand this glorification of heroes.”

He disappeared with a pop. “That was the wine god?” Pope asked incredulously, turning his confusion to Chiron.

Chiron sighed, the way Big John did when John B and JJ came home with a teacher’s note and black eyes. “Yes, that was him.”

Chiron turned out to be a bit more helpful. With all five of them sat at the table and Jonathan hovering at the door, he explained a bit of what was known about the demigods. JJ was just happy to have someone give a straight answer.

“You five are a very interesting case. I only received word of your existence the day before you showed up, which is why I sent Jonathan to collect you. That is not normal, typically we get demigods by their thirteenth birthday or before, and anyone who isn’t found by then, well, they don’t tend to last long.” He glanced at the faces in front of him, older than most of the campers he had. “To make it to seventeen without protection or training is a huge feat. Have you ever had trouble with monsters before?”

Sarah giggled at that, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, it’s just that we’ve had a ton of problems with humans and no monsters at all!”

Chiron pressed his graying temples and exhaled slowly. Something about this situation seemed to stress him out. “The gold. Right. I don’t know if that’s connected or not, but Mr. D knew about it before you got here. It seems that you five are another secret that Olympus has been keeping from me, and I still don’t know why.”

“So what do we need to do about it?” John B asked, his hand gripping Sarah’s on the table now.

“I think it’s time for you to meet Rachel.”

Rachel, the Oracle, turned out to be a total babe, so JJ was happy about that. She had curly red hair that exploded in glossy waves around her face, and her green eyes were huge and bright. Kie shot him a look as they entered the cave, where Rachel apparently lived, and he grinned cheekily at her, pulling at one of her braids.

For an actual cave, the space was nice. It looked like a good place to smoke, with tapestries on the walls and lots of cushions. Rachel smiled as she shook their hands, and JJ winked at her. She ignored it.

“You,” she pointed a graceful finger at John B, “I have something for you. It’s from your mother.” She reached into a patched tote bag and pulled out a smooth bronze disk.

“The compass…”

Rachel smiled sadly. “I know your dad is gone, but your mother cares about you. She wants you to know that.” She passed it to John B, who turned it open.

Inside, the word Redfield was still scratched into the metal surface, but there was something new. A large gold coin glinted in the secret compartment. JJ leaned over to look at it, snatching the metal from John B’s hand. “Hey, this has like, the Eiffel Tower on it!”

“That’s the Empire State Building.” Kiara pulled the coin out of his grip and passed it gently back to John B, rolling her eyes at JJ.

“Right, of course. I knew that.”

Rachel looked amused. “It’s a golden drachma. You can use it to send Iris messages, it’s like Facetiming. The compass is self-replenishing, so you always have a coin to use.”

“How did you get this?” John B held the compass delicately in cupped hands.

“From time to time the gods speak to me. Mostly your father, Kiara, but Iris is kind. A bit flighty, maybe, but she likes to bring me herbal teas. All you have to do is toss the coin into mist, and state who you want to see.”

John B stroked the compass with his thumb, and Sarah wrapped an arm around his waist. JJ ruffled his hair.

“So, I know a bit of your stories already, but why don’t you start from the beginning?”

And for the first time since this whole adventure started, the Pogues were the ones to tell their story.

John B and Kie explained most of it, after everyone got tired of Pope’s wordy descriptions. JJ jumped in to add to the drama and action of the story, since the others were doing a terrible job of describing how awesome they had been. Nodding and asking good questions, Rachel was a great listener, and he caught himself tracing her paint-covered jeans with his eyes. Artsy, hippy chicks weren’t the type he normally went for, but he always had a thing for them nonetheless.

“There’s an old prophecy,” she mused carefully after they had finished, “but it doesn’t quite fit. It’s a prophecy of four.

‘ _Four heroes, hidden from view,_

_Shall watch their home be born anew._

_Light and wisdom secure their fate,_

_But each of them weighed down by hate._

_Just as the captive rose to power,_

_What’s hid decides their final hour._

_A parent’s love can choose their path,_

_Or condemn them to the dark one’s wrath_.’

My friend Ella, she’s a harpy, recited this to me in New Rome. The other camp, you’ve heard of it?” Pope nodded. “Okay, so this prophecy was written in the Sibylline Books, which are contained in Ella’s memory, and it’s also carved into the Temple of Jupiter. It’s one of the unfulfilled prophecies of the past age. It’s definitely possible that it’s about you guys.”

Rachel talked fast, and JJ didn’t really follow her. “Only four heroes, though,” he said, spreading his hands to indicate the five of them. “So which of us is out of the prophecy?” He assumed it was Sarah, but he didn’t say it out loud. As much as he liked her, she wasn’t a Pogue like the rest of them.

“I don’t know. Wisdom sounds like it would be you, Pope, and light could refer to Kiara or John B. Or the prophecy may not be about you guys at all. _Hidden from view_ makes me think it is, though. I think I’ll ask your dad about this, Kiara. He’s been pretty helpful to the heroes lately.”

Kie looked a bit sick at the thought, and JJ remembered what Mr. D had said to her in the Big House. “No one can ever resist Apollo.” He wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t spell out good things for her parents’ marriage.

As they left Rachel’s cave, JJ miming “call me” to the redhead, Pope pulled out a notebook and wrote down the prophecy.

“I think I can decode this, guys.” His snapback was sitting crooked on his head as he scribbled notes.

“Are we sure we want to get involved in this prophecy,” JJ cut in, glancing at his friends’ faces. “I mean, I don’t want this to be like the gold all over again. No offense, Sarah, but you probably aren’t part of the prophecy.” John B glared at him and he raised his hands defensively. “Look, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. Four heroes? It’s gotta be us four. We’re the ones who found the gold in the first place, we’re the Pogues, and Sarah, I think you’re great and you were a huge help but you just aren’t one of the original four.”

“Well I think you’re being a total fucking dick, maybe that makes you not part of the prophecy.”

“Look at it realistically, guys, I’m just the voice of reason!” JJ was aware that he was half-yelling and definitely didn’t sound like the voice of reason at that moment, but come on, it didn’t make sense for the Pogues to be split up in a prophecy. That would just be too fucking cruel.

Pope played mediator. “We still don’t know who the four are, so you two can chill. All five of us were hidden from view. And whoever the four are, we’re not gonna split up for this.”

JJ shrugged. He knew he was probably right anyways, but John B looked like he wanted to break him in two, so he let the subject drop.

After dinner, Damien caught up with JJ outside the pavilion. “We took a vote. We want you to come with us tonight. You were really good at practice today and Ozan says we can trust you.”

He felt a pulse of nervous excitement, but played it off casually. “Cool, I was wondering when you’d come around to my talents.”

Damien laughed and patted him on the back before running off to the rest of their siblings. They seemed to have accepted that while they shared genetics, the Pogues were JJ’s real family.

“What was that all about?” Kie crinkled her nose at the group of Nemesis children, most of whom were clad in leather and chain jewelry.

JJ poked the spot where her brows pulled together and adopted a brooding expression. “That,” he said loftily, “was none of your business.”

The campfire that night was loud and raucous. The flames burned bright white in the night sky, and Kiara led a round of songs with her ukulele. The Apollo cabin cheered wildly when she was done, and she gave them a theatrical bow. When she met his eye, JJ mimed a lovestruck swoon, and she hit him on the shoulder.

It seemed like the rest of the camp had gotten used to the new additions. Leo, the red bandana guy who had a bad sense of comedic timing, was flicking colourful flames into the fire, causing it to rise in synchronized bursts. He caught his shirt on fire twice, but just swore lightly and patted it out. JJ thought he would like to get to know him.

Rachel Dare was sitting off to the side, speaking urgently with Percy and a pretty blonde girl. She frequently glanced over at them, which JJ tried to meet with a wink or a smile, prompting Pope to whisper, “Hate to break it to you, man, but Oracles are celibate.”

“No one stays celibate around me.” All the Pogues booed him at that.

Will was leading a rousing rendition of Wagon Wheel when Rachel stood up and made her way across the amphitheatre, beelining for the group of Pogues.

“Uh oh JJ, now’s your chance,” Sarah crowed, but the rest of the camp fell silent and her words echoed. She blushed.

As she reached the Pogues, Rachel’s body stood stiff and still in front of them. An awed hush fell over the campers, and the fire burned green. Then Rachel’s body did too, and JJ scrambled back away from her. Her eyes snapped open, and she turned to Sarah, placing robotic arms on her shoulders. A green mist poured from her mouth as she spoke, and Sarah looked like she about to cry.

_“Love, love’s love, and her reunited,_

_Will see her father’s worst crime righted._

_Go South, beyond the place you drowned,_

_And Wisdom’s dilemma will be found.”_

Then the green light dissipated from the air and Rachel’s body collapsed, limp, on the ground. Sarah dropped to her knees to shake her, squeaking out, “What the fuck just happened?”

Percy came running over to pull Rachel, slowly gaining consciousness, to her feet. “I think,” he said, appraising Sarah with new respect, “you just got your first quest.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! I haven't read the Apollo series, so I hope that was pretty canon. I know that the Seven aren't at camp as often now, but I think I'll tweaked the timeline a bit.


End file.
